Three Senate Democrats have directed a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) insisting it fully enforce its “Made in the USA” labeling standards in the aftermath of recent agency decisions to settle with companies that allegedly marketed foreign-made goods as domestically produced.

Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin drafted a memorandum to the FTC on Monday stating they were concerned about recent agency decisions to reach “no-fault, no-money” settlements with companies alleged to have sold imported equipment under a “Made in the USA” label, instead of pursuing fines and admissions of guilt from the firms involved.

With state officials eyeing $56 billion of wind farm projects off the American coastline, developers are worried the turbines will need to be stamped with a big “Made in the U.S.A.”

Each structure is enormous — almost half the height of the Empire State Building. Most all of them are constructed in Europe, at least for now. As states in the U.S. Northeast jump into wind power, they’re betting they can create their own windmill industry. It’ll be a costly but perhaps necessary move, especially as President Donald Trump pushes for more factory jobs and picks fights with those making parts abroad.

“There’s no way of hiding that every single state, be it here in the U.S. or be it countries in Europe, are insisting on everything sort of being local,” said Henrik Poulsen, CEO of Orsted A/S, the Danish company that is the world’s largest offshore-wind developer. “It is an equation that’s very difficult to solve without the whole technology becoming much more expensive.”

With Marijuana listed as a Schedule 1 drug in the United States, business owners and growers face strict Federal restrictions. These governmental commerce restrictions pose issues to brand owners and growers wishing to protect their personal Marijuana brands (strains) with trademarks Albeit, some states have begun adopting their own policies regarding Marijuana commerce and trade, the United States Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) presumes ultimate control in distributing trademarks and brand protection. A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, or design, or combination of words, phrases, symbols, or designs, that identifies and distinguishes the source of goods of one party from those of others1. Ultimately, a trademark offers an incredible value-add to brand owners using a brand name that is recognized by consumers which therefore drives customers to their business. Business owners/growers seeking to protect their personalized crops or bring legitimacy to commonly known strains face issues in providing customers with strain and crop assurance due to these strict regulations on Marijuana commerce.Read more of this post

Nearly eight months after President Donald J. Trump signed his executive order “Buy American and Hire American,” an expert on certifying whether goods are made in the United States shared with Big League Politics the challenges in certification and enforcing Trump’s intentions.

Adam Reiser, the CEO and founder of Certified, Inc., told Big League Politics he is seeing no action in the executive branch to move the president’s executive order forward.

A source familiar with how the White House drafted the executive order told Big League Politics: “There are zero teeth in it, you know? Let’s of fanfare, lots of publicity, back-slapping and hand-shaking with Trump–and now, it is getting resisted, like as if it meant nothing.”

According to the president’s directive, all agencies were supposed to have turned into both the Department of Commerce and the Office of Management and Budget how they plan to comply. These plans are to include, searchable databases of certified vendors, storage arrangements for the documents and simplifications of their internal procurement procedures.

Reiser said Trump’s executive order was the president’s attempt to bring federal procurement back in synch with the law.

President Donald J. Trump holding his Executive Order 13788 at the April 18, 2017 Kenosha, Wis., signing ceremony. (White House photo)

A senior administration official speaking on background on Easter Monday, the day before the executive order was signed in the headquarters of the tool company Snap-On in Kenosha, Wisconsin, said the executive order would correct the abuse of the Buy American Act waiver process.

“Okay, so the culture immediately changes across the agencies. We have a lax enforcement, lax monitoring, lax compliance,” the official said. Read more of this post

The auto industry has warned that significant changes to the so-called rules of origin could undercut the president’s America-first goals.

Top executives from Detroit automakers met Monday with Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials and aired their concerns about changes the Trump administration is seeking to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Trump has pushed for companies to construct more auto assembly plants in the U.S., while also pushing for major changes to NAFTA that the automakers oppose. U.S. negotiators have proposed significant changes to the so-called rules of origin for autos in a bid to ensure more U.S.-made parts are used in vehicles assembled in North America, a change that the auto industry has warned could undercut Trump’s America-first goals.

“We view the modernization of NAFTA as an important opportunity to update the 23-year-old agreement and set the stage for an expansion of U.S. auto exports,” Matt Blunt, a former Missouri governor who leads the American Automotive Policy Council, a trade association representing Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV said in a statement. “We also appreciate the opportunity to directly address the industry’s concerns with the administration’s rule of origin proposal.”

Blunt said there are other things the group would like to have added to NAFTA, including a provision to guard against currency manipulation by Mexico and Canada.

Fiat Chrysler Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne, GM CEO Mary Barra and Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s president of global operations, attended the White House meeting. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn were also scheduled to attend the meeting, Pence’s office said earlier on Monday.

Pence’s office issued a statement confirming the meeting and saying he emphasized “Trump’s commitment to enact historic tax cuts” and commitment to grow manufacturing in the U.S., reduce trade deficits and aid the car-making industry.

NOVEMBER 15, 2017 Individual agency compliance plans must be submitted to the Director of the Office and Management and Budget (OMB) and Secretary of Commerce due today for the Buy America Act.

April 18, 2017, President Trump signed the Buy American and Hire American Executive Order #13788 to reduce Federal waiver applications, support the US economy, and hold government agencies responsible for initiatives regarding procuring Made in USA goods. This executive order reinforces the 1933 Buy American Act which was enacted to protect America’s interest by requiring government agencies to prefer Made in USA goods, products, and vendors for government procurements.

Timeline- for Buy America Act

The General Services Administration (GSA), which oversees $66 billion in annual government procurement, will be accountable for securing Made in USA goods and products for their scheduled procurements. Additionally, the GSA will have to provide annual implementation reports to the Secretary of Commerce and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regarding ‘Buy American’ initiatives starting this November of 2017. The Secretary of Commerce must submit these November reports to President Trump annually every January starting in 2019.

Certified, Inc., One of the Nation’s Top Independent Made in USA Certifiers is Well Positioned to Take the Lead Role

BOCA RATON, FL, July 18, 2017 – This week, the Trump administration doubled down on its commitment to buy products made in the USA. President Trump renewed his pledge to bring American jobs back by hosting a Made in USA Conference at the White House on Wednesday, July 19th.

Since before his inauguration, President Trump has been fighting on behalf of American workers and their families. The President recently signed the “Buy American and Hire American” Executive Order to ensure that taxpayer funds are used to purchase USA made products and services. The President is committed to preserving and creating new jobs for all US citizens.

According to Senator Barbara Stabenow (2017), the government recently awarded more than $70 billion in contracts to foreign manufacturers that do not manufacture products in the United States. Furthermore, in 2013, the Department of Defense used 28,887 waivers and spent $19.7 billion on goods produced by foreign companies (Murphy, 2014).

“There are legitimate reasons for buying foreign made products, in some categories like technology and certain raw materials, USA made goods are not available or they may be too costly to include,” said Adam Reiser, CEO, and Founder of Certified, Inc. “However, we use far too many waivers because stipulations and definitions of ‘made in USA’ are too confusing even for an experienced official and authentic certification is too difficult to determine.”

“In 2014, Certified, along with several of its competitors were audited by the FTC and Certified was the only one that met or exceeded government standards,” according to Reiser. “Our Verity One™ system offers regulators and consumers, a cloud-based evidence repository that is accessible from any smartphone device, so records can be easily accessed by clients, procuring agencies, and consumers,” Reiser continued.

“We welcome this important conference and the Trump Administrations’ commitment to promoting and buying products and services made in the USA,” said Reiser. “Supporting USA manufacturers grows our economy and US jobs, and this action is a great indication that President Trump’s heart is in the right place.”

Certified organic strawberries aren’t so organic after all. Although organic strawberries sell for 50% to 100% more than conventional berries, organic strawberries are fumigated with toxic chemicals, including methyl bromide, at the beginning stages of their life-cycle.

Methyl bromide, is used to sterilize the soil before strawberries are planted. It’s not sprayed on the fruit. It’s a soil fumigant that kills just about everything it touches. Many hybridized seed varieties have been created that can only grow in sterile soil.

“The soil is, as a matter of fact, full of live organisms. It is essential to conceive of it as something pulsating with life, not as a dead or inert mass.”

– Albert Howard, The Soil and Health, 1947

“For most of agriculture’s 10,000-year history, farmers have succeeded or failed based on their ability to nurture life within soil. The microorganisms and earthworms that thrive in healthy soil metabolize nutrients and make them available for crops. They also convert animal and vegetable waste into humus, thus regenerating their own habitat and maintaining that thin layer of topsoil on which all terrestrial life depends.
In modern agriculture, however, soil operates as a medium, not a habitat: It exists to transfer synthetic, pre-metabolized nutrients from factories to crops. In this regime, any life form found in soil is at best innocuous — and at worst a threat. When a vast field is planted in the same crop year after year, its pests concentrate in the soil, waiting to strike.”

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Download our app it’s still in BETA but you can help build it the name of the App is Verity ScanningAppleAndroid

WASHINGTON, March 23, 2017 – OK Food, Inc., an Oklahoma City, Okla. establishment, is recalling approximately 933,272 pounds of breaded chicken products that may be contaminated with extraneous materials, specifically metal, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

The ready-to-eat (RTE) breaded chicken items were produced on various dates from Dec. 19, 2016 through March 7, 2017. A list of the products subject to recall can be found here PDF | View Labels.

Known for its antibiotic features and helpful for treating many bacterial and inflammatory issues, the garlic is widely used not only in the preparation of many remedies, but thanks to its special flavors and scent also used in various dishes and even eaten raw.

But note, not every garlic found on the market is as safe to use, but the latest report of several researchers have shown that the garlic imported from China can have a bad influence on the organism and instead of healthy compounds it’s enriched with high levels of pesticides and deadly toxins.

Most of the garlic that was imported into the USA from China last year had high levels of banned toxic chemicals, which can have devastating effects on a person’s health.

It’s all due to outlawed/banned pesticides Chinese producers use, such as phorate and parathion to accelerate the growth of the products.

Therefore, all of these chemicals get transferred into the products resulting in harm to a human organism knowing how widely and often is used in our kitchens.